This was a facer for the sergeant, but he carried it off better than could be expected.
“So she married Hermann, the fiddler?—a Swiss fiddler! Then she was more chagrined than I supposed. I suspected she would do something rash if I went away without proposing. Poor, poor creature! As for Hermann’s teaching your Toni to play the violin, why Madame, Toni could no more play the fiddle than he can command the regiment. Very well! Mademoiselle Dumont would have been no match for a sergeant. I am glad now that I did not propose to her, as she certainly expected me to do. She is much better matched with a Swiss fiddler than with a sergeant who has seen service for more than thirty years.”
The sergeant eyed Madame Marcel closely. Was it possible that this demure and correct person, in her neat black bonnet and graceful mantle, was poking fun at him?—Sergeant Duval, of the dragoons! But Madame Marcel looked so innocent that it was impossible to fathom her; and just then Toni and Denise appeared on the scene. The instant Madame Marcel’s maternal eye fell upon Toni, she knew that something had happened, and that that something was good. And presently it was time to go home, and they all journeyed back to Beaupré. They walked to their lodgings together through the soft purple twilight of September. Toni went with his mother to her room, and, taking her in his arms, poured out his heart to her. His mother kissed him and shed a few tears as mothers will do under those circumstances. And then Toni had to run for the barracks as hard as he could.
About nine o’clock, when he was through with his stable work and was standing in the barrack square, he saw Paul Verney passing by. Toni stood at attention, with such a look on his face that Paul Verney stopped and spoke to him.
“What do you want, mon enfant?” he said, after that pleasant form of address with which the officers speak to their soldiers.
“To see you, sir, in private, for a little while,” answered Toni under his breath.
“Very well, then, come to my quarters at half-past nine.”
“Was it possible that this demure and correct person ... was poking fun at him?”